Tuesday.

Nearly ten in the morning.

Took the kids to McDonald's, took Cassidy to school, took Flynn to school. Went to the market. Bought drinking water, fish water, little bottles of water for the kids. Bought milk. Napkins. Cream and light corn syrup to try making fudge again. Bought regular white bread. Bought hot dogs. Bought sweetener for coffee. Bought a different brand of little apple juice boxes.

Feel stunned and sad. Big time. Last night I napped on the couch instead of watching the football game. Same on Sunday, mostly I just napped. Can't get enough sleep.

Finished playing "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" which I'd had since August. Playing "Blasto" again. Just want to be distracted.

Sooner or later I'll need to tell the kids that Grandma Peggy is dead. Is "no longer with us." That we won't see Grandma Peggy again. Very sad. Very, very sad.

Everything seems empty. Profoundly empty.

More rain on Tuesday morning

Kind of a surprise. Just sitting here. Played a video game for a few minutes. The house is clean enough. I may clean the floors later.

After Diane was over yesterday afternoon I sat on the couch and fell asleep hard. Weird. Woke up at 6:30. The Rams were ahead 10-0 but the Colts came back and won by a 25-point margin.

Depressed, angry, sad... worried. Have to tell the kids that Grandma Peggy died. That we won't see her any more. Just stabs or waves of sadness.

Oh, God. I feel sad. I feel so sad.

I feel sad and lonely. Dropped the kids off. Mailed Sydney's birthday card. Now I'm at home.

Another Monday

Rain yesterday, thank God. Fire in the fireplace for the first time in months.

Get up, get clean, shave, dress, get the kids up and ready to go. Put the trash out for collection.

Need to organize bills and money this morning once the kids are at school. Ten after seven now.

So now I'm on my own.

Diane is stopping by at 2 to see Cassidy, she's unsure if she can stay late enough to see Flynn.

Toni called last night for a bit. It was good to talk to someone.

Need to mail Sydney a birthday card.

Bought that on Friday.

Mom Died.

Bob called and told me. Kelly and I had a feeling something was not right.

Hasn't quite hit home yet.

Making fudge. Keeping distracted. How do I tell Flynn and Cassidy?

Turn

Fight with some Zionista on The WELL, Diane in fucking DRUG REHAB, kids started their schools again.. fucking stressed out lately a bad week.... seems like two weeks....

Clear turn for the worse.

Zionista!

Joined The WELL, located a virulent Zionist who mined my blog for the most hurtful thing they could find in short order. Pissed me off. Didn't surprise, me, however. I$rael has a bizarre hold in US foreign policy, and even questioning why that is can just about get you lynched. Much less wondering about the allegiance of government workers. I$rael is a foreign country. But it seems to RUN this country. Asking why is like walking around with two golf clubs held over your head in a lightning storm.

Very unhappy that a discussion group turned into a personal attack. Oddly enough, the kind of underhanded attack Jews have a reputation for throughout history. The Khazars appear to have invented public relations. Enough of that.

Buried my blog, linked the former URL to Mossad's website.

Got today off to a bad start. Makes me want to pursue the matter. Why does I$rael have so much influence in the US? How is that possible?

The attack on me was to prevent discussion. To eliminate even thinking about what's going on. "The Jew cries out as he strikes you." Really pisses me off.

Angry.

Cassidy wanted to get the mail yesterday (after Flynn had asked to), so today I let her get it. She dragged her feet, Flynn and I are sitting there waiting and waiting. I asked her if she could get it done a bit faster. Then she said she wanted to run home, to which I said "No." I got more and more frustrated. I'm still furious. Compared to Flynn, she's been nothing but trouble since the day she was born. Obstinate, argumentative, unappreciative. Today was one of those days when it came to a head. I'm spending my life doing THIS..? I'm so fucking angry I can barely see.

Really angry and unhappy.

Filing

Labeled and semi-organized most of the files in the filing drawer. An accomplishment. Things are actually pretty much organized.

Made a backup today using one of the two backup drives. Edited a whole bunch of stuff earlier, all the text files, half the graphic files. Threw all the image files into iPhoto. Have a big folder of individual text files exported from StickyBrain, which was dead slow lately, a real stone. Using the Spotlight feature in OSX is faster.

Repotted the houseplants yesterday, got around to attacking the filing today. Impressive. Finally getting something done on wallpaper-type get-around-to-its. Go through the tool chest tomorrow and put photos aside, keep them in a box or album or something. Tired of scanning photographs into the computer. I have enough photographs. Unless they're really fucking something then I don't want to scan them in. I still have about five sketchbooks full of weird little bits and pieces to scan in someday. Or not.

It felt great to get rid of the videotapes and Dead cassettes earlier this year. You just don't need all that stuff weighing you down all the time, maybe you're never going to get around to it. So get rid of it.

Go through the tool chest and find manuals for stuff, file those. Set photos aside. Throw out clutter. It feels good to get rid of things and to get organized.

Didn't get much else done today. Grilled some chicken, which turned out very nicely. Chicken and rice and carrots and broccoli for dinner. Made fudgesicle ice cream.

Glad to have made a backup of the semi-groomed data. I feel somewhat organized. Glad to delete a bunch of old things. I'll be glad to get rid of more things.

Need to wrap Cassidy's birthday gifts. And arrange a cake and candles and cards for her.

It actually cooled off a bit this evening, I have the door and windows open. Very nice. I don't like the heat. And it hasn't been super-hot here yet.

So enjoy the cool evening while it lasts.

No word at all from Diane. No clue what she's up to now. Looking at some of the text files I deleted today I was surprised at how long ago I was unhappy with Diane. Long ten years.

Now I am raising the kids on my own. This is somewhat more than I bit off but so far, so good.

Go through tool chest tomorrow. Find anything and everything that important and file it. Set photos aside. Get the tool chest organized. It's the last bastion of clutter. Aside from a pile of clutter in the garage. And perhaps the kitchen junk drawer.

I would like to find time to go through all the holiday decorations and get them organized well ahead of time. And address the Christmas cards. And wrap the Christmas gifts. Get as many of the holiday chores done as far ahead of time as possible. Get the Christmas lights out and untangled and tested to put up the day after Thanksgiving. Make Christmas cookies ahead of time. Bake cinnamon swirl bread to freeze.

I'd like to find the granola bar recipe from Good Eats and make those for the kids for snacks.

It's quarter past nine. If I want to watch a movie, I should pick one out and go and watch it before I fall asleep again...

These are the two new plant containers that I bought yesterday after the beach at the small nursery in Poway. They were expensive. This afternoon I finally got around to transplanting the houseplants from the 1980s. They were completely potbound, split them into quarters. Some are cuttings from the houseplants Julia had in San Clemente.

Glad to get that accomplished, that was overdue. I'd last transplanted them in 1997, I think.

Went to the fish store today. Donated the huge collection of bottom feeders that had bred in the big tank since I first noticed the first baby bottom feeder back in February. Prolific breeders, to say the least. Glad to get that taken care of.

Preseason game on last night, grilled a delicious steak, had a baked potato and some grilled asparagus. Delicious. Really good.

It was fun building a sandcastle the other day with the kids. The tide came in pretty quickly. It was a rear-guard action, at best.

I should bring the shovel next time. Build up a central mound of sand fast. Maybe the folding emergency shovel. Make a huge central mound fast and then repair and/or decorate that. When I helped make those sand sculptures they had buckets of water that I helped lugged and then mixed in molds and let them set THEN took off the molds and carved away whatever they didn't want in the sculpture.

What else? I want to get after the tomatoes and heavily trim/remove them. They're getting a little ragged. I did buy some cilantro to make salsa with. The serrano pepper plant has a lot of little chile peppers on it.

Time to think about making dinner. Tacos? Salad? Pizza? Nothing?

 

Another Tuesday.

Picked up Flynn's registration packet. That feels like some kind of accomplishment.

The morning glory and the moonflower vines have reached above the fence as of yesterday and today. They're doing well. Nice to see them growing so tall at last. Looking forward to their flowering.

Looked at google.com/maps to see if I can take Flynn to middle school via Pomerado Road and it looks like that would work out better than driving down Paseo Lucido and slogging through the high school/middle school traffic. Drop him off near the tennis courts. Then make my way home as best I can.

Another hot day ahead. And somewhat humid. No plans for the rest of the day, really. Get the kid's school paperwork in order. Sift through the filing drawer. Get everything organized.

Open one of the hard drives and back everything up. My CDs and DVDs are gone. I have no backup. Better to make one now than wish I had.

 

Monday. Cloudy out.

I'm sure it'll burn off later. Put the trash and recycling out. Including all of my backup CDs and DVDs. Time to break out one of the backup drives and write what I have on hand to it. Have SOME backup.

Sitting here at the computer, drinking coffee. Kids are still asleep. I'd like to take Flynn for a haircut this morning and mail a letter @ the Post Office. And get some more water.

Rearranged the rocks in the big tank on Saturday. Happy with the arrangement. The fish seem happy. The fish probably have a limited range of emotion. If you stop and think about it.

Pick up Flynn's registration information tomorrow morning.

The tides are perfect for sandcastle building (tide coming in) on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Haven't been to the beach all summer.

Hall of Fame game on tonight at five o'clock. Watched the American Bowl game on Saturday afternoon. Tape delay. Pretty good game. I watched a scrimmage between Green Bay and the Bears, I think, on Friday. Not an actual football game, but close enough.

Football season beginning is like arriving at your destination, the end of the year. Preseason is just beginning. Like tomatoes ripening or something. Preseason football, Cassidy's birthday, school begins, Labor Day... the regular season begins.

School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, end of the year. That great week after Christmas with not a lot to do. New Year's Eve. Then the begin of the next year.

Made some roasted chicken in one of the terra cotta bakers for dinner yesterday afternoon. Made some biscuits and vegetables. Very nice little dinner. Played a game of Clue and a game of Operation with the kids.

Get back to attacking the file drawer and get that organized. Scan in old photos and drawings and get rid of the physical clutter. Sift through the clutter I have on the computer now. I just don't need it.

Old drawings? Recycle them, make them into one standard finished format. When did I last draw anything? That was once so special and important. Find a home for the old drawings. Finish them off. Maybe do more with them.

We have only ONE RSVP for Cassidy's birthday, her pal Natalie. Going to be a small party. I want to take Cassidy to the party store so she can pick out party supplies that she likes. Hopefully more than one of her little classmates will RSVP!

Remove some of the flowers from by the black gate and plant marigolds there. I still have half a flat of white vincas to plant out. I could stand to trim more of the tomatoes, too. The two vines in the smaller bed haven't done as well as the ones in the main bed. Not sure why that is. Different soil amendment? Did I amend the small bed the same way I did the bigger bed? Next year (or in the fall) the way to go would be BIG trellises. Trellii. The tomato cages were engulfed by the tomatoes in no time, I haven't seen them in months.

Something else that needs trimming is the bougainvillea. Not satisfied with that area under the pine tree by Cassidy's window. The lantana could stand trimming. The lantana smells bad when you brush against it. Not pleasant.

Might as well wake up the kids, it's 7:30. I'd rather do the errands while it's semi-cool.

Drag the kids to the pool or something. Weary of hanging around the house 24/7. Going to the market is the highlight of my week, I get out of the house.